Valerie Grand'Maison loses cherished 100m freestyle title

Gary Kingston, Postmedia News09.02.2012

Canadian Paralympic athlete Valerie Grand-Maison celebrates after winning the silver medal in the Women's 100M Freestyle swimming event at the London 2012 Paralympic Games on September 2, 2012. The world's second largest sporting event takes place between August 29 and September 9, 2012.

LONDON – Valerie Grand'Maison was a jumble of contradictory emotions Sunday night – sad but fiery, disappointed but determined.

Canada's most productive swimmer at the Beijing Olympics four years ago, with three gold medals, two silver and a bronze, had just lost the cherished 100-metre freestyle title to long-time rival Kelly Bercherer of the U.S.

“I wanted it so bad,” she said as she met with reporters.

She fought to hold back tears and remain composed, then defiantly said she would come back stronger when she races again later in the week.

“I don't do things half-assed, I didn't come here to particpate, I didn't come here to put up a good race in the first 50,” said the visually-impaired Grand'Maison, who was right with blazingly fast Bercherer at the turn, but was out-touched at the wall and finished .51 seconds back.

“I came here to win, to have the best races of my life. It is not over.. I'm going to fight harder.

“In the last four years, I've gone through a lot of challenges and right now, it's just another challenge, one more I have to overcome to enable me to be stronger in four days when I race again, when I show up on that pool deck again – fierce!, mean! And ready to show what I've got.”

Just getting to London was one of Grand'Maison's toughest hurdles after suffering a serious shoulder tear 18 months ago. She said she was prepared to “hang up the swimsuit” at one point, but insisted Sunday that she is at 100 per cent after a lot of treatment and and therapy, a new strength and conditioning program and some work with a sport psychologist.

“A year ago, I never would have thought I would be at the that level of fitness right now.”

The 23-year-old from Montreal did concede, however, that somewhere over the last three years, maybe she “lost the belief that I could do it today.

“A year and six months maybe wasn't enough to put me back to the arrogant, confident person I was four years ago.”

Bercherer, whose time of 59.56 seconds was seventh-tenths of a second off Grand'Maison's world record, also won the 50-metre freestyle Saturday, with the Canadian settling for silver.

Grand'Maison's next race is the 200-metre individual medley, the event in which she earned the bronze in Beijing.

“It's a big one for me, but less pressure because I don't have the world record, I'm not the defending Olympic champion. That's going to help.”

Meantime, Canada's busiest woman in the pool, Brianna Nelson of Victoria, also earned a silver medal Sunday with a Canadian record time of 3:04.60 in the S7 200-metre individual medley.

Australian Jacqueline Freney easily captured the gold in a world record time for the class of 2:54.42.

It was the second silver of the Paralympics for Nelson, who is swimming on each of the first six days of the Games. She also has two eighths.

“The time out of the sessions [between morning heats and evening finals] is pretty good, so you can go back to the village and rest a little bit,” said the Calgary born Nelson, whose right side is affected by cerebral palsy. “It's not like you're going all day.

“But yeah, it starts to take a toll after four days.”

Nelson, 20 and a psychology and history student at the University of Victoria, had a best finish of seventh in six events in Beijing in 2000 when she admittedly didn't put as much into her training as she could have.

“I've trained with more focus this time. I had a goal this time, that I wanted to be somebody at these Games. For Beijing, I really just trained to get there. So I think that's what really made the difference.”

Nelson, who wears a Santa Claus hat onto the pool deck that was given to her by a friend who couldn't make it to London with her, earned her first medal in the 50-metre butterfly, a stroke in which she uses only her left arm.

“I was like really ecstatic and I thought 'Wow, I can get one, maybe I should try for two, maybe three.'”

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